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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27539347">our atoms will never touch (our souls can only reach)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanplague/pseuds/beanplague%20but%20sexy'>beanplague but sexy (beanplague)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Outer Worlds (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Developing Relationship, Drugs, F/M, Face-Sitting, Humor, Introspection, OH and they do have sex at one point while on drugs if that is something you need mapped out, Oral Sex, Pillow Talk, Porn with Feelings, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, a frankly absurd amount of porn. as the next few tags will reflect:, and that about covers the porn! the other 7000 words consist of:, named captain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:40:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27539347</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanplague/pseuds/beanplague%20but%20sexy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The self is false, and the consciousness is trapped in the myth of your physical body. You will never truly touch someone who means something to you, because their consciousness is also wrapped up in atom upon atom that will never make contact with yours. Still, when you find that connection, when you truly feel it, that space between you will close, for just a moment.</p>
<p>And, in the meantime, things will get really fucking weird. And it will become apparent that nothing ever makes any void-damned sense.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>our atoms will never touch (our souls can only reach)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The Captain—Honey Lou, when the moment calls for it—is a fine person. A force to be reckoned with, for sure. Her prowess with that hammer is only outmatched by her uncanny ability to land in the hands of the perfect solution to whatever problem she’s taken to solving at the time. She’s very lucky and very capable, even despite her penchant for violence and her disinterest in more intellectual approaches.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And she’s very attractive.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This is simply a fact! Max has observed it, as has Nyoka—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>he learned this one night in the kitchen, when the other crew members were playing drinking games and he was abstaining in order to get absolutely wasted on a bottle of spectrum vodka he’d hidden in one of the cabinets. Nyoka was asked to rank them all in order of attractiveness. (The exact words used by Dr. Fenhill were ‘Spacer’s Choice pistol to your head, who are you fucking first.’) The list started with The Captain (‘fiercer than hungry mantiqueen when she’s got that hammer’) and ended with Felix (‘cute, but bumbling hell-raisers aren’t exactly my type, sorry Felix.’)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—as has Ellie. (A game of fuck, marry, airlock between her and Felix. The three choices presented were ‘Max, Parvati, Honey Lou.’ Felix made a face and refused to answer. Dr. Fenhill, ever the optimist, replied ‘airlock Parvati—she’s asexual. I gotta respect her wishes—fuck The Captain. She’s hot. Marry Max. I wanna keep renewing our contract so that I get half of whatever bits he earns. I’m not even gonna spend them. I just think it’d bother him.” It was a very annoying conversation to listen in on while it was proceeding directly in front of him, but enlightening.) There is no reason he should be so put off by his own interest in The Captain. It isn’t as though she’s been very subtle about</span>
  <em>
    <span> her</span>
  </em>
  <span> interest in </span>
  <em>
    <span>him.</span>
  </em>
  <span> In fact, she’s made it very clear, every time the opportunity has arisen, that she would like to sleep with Max. And laws, he is tempted, but it would make things very, very weird. And Max’s life has already been so goddamn weird. Weird and terribly </span>
  <span>annoying.</span>
  <span> He’s already been on this ship far longer than anticipated, already veered so far off the fucking path that it’s a miracle it hasn’t come to bite him in the ass. Sleeping with The Captain could only make it worse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This begs the question, then: why are they kissing?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Well, there was a lot of that spectrum vodka involved. He hid it in the cabinet to prevent Nyoka from getting to it, but somewhere between the hours of one and three in the morning he went to the kitchen to find Honey Lou taking a sip straight from the bottle. He was pissed at first, then he remembered that he’s a vicar and Scienticians aren’t supposed to get pissed at not being able to drink in the middle of the night, and then he sat down and shared the drink with her. They had a ball. A fun conversation about just how literal the Architect is meant to be taken as a spiritual figure and the best methods for throwing a punch. And then there was some irrelevant bullshit—sorry, </span>
  <em>
    <span>small talk</span>
  </em>
  <span>—in between that, when the social lubrication of the drink had dried out and they were just two people who wanted to sleep with each other sitting beside each other, drunk, in the early hours of the morning.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Suddenly, all the reasons Max had for not sleeping with Honey Lou seem to argue the opposite. Things </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> already so goddamn weird, aren’t they? No harm in making things a little weirder. If he hasn’t bent the path already, maybe it’s time he does something to send himself flying back into place. That’s an often disregarded part of the scripture. One </span>
  <em>
    <span>needs</span>
  </em>
  <span> to be snapped back, occasionally. That’s how you figure out your position in the colony to begin with.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Honey Lou is very attractive. She moans into his mouth and threads one of her hands in his hair, pulling him closer to her. Her kiss is impatient and heavy and it tastes exactly like the vodka they were just sharing. When she pulls away, it’s with distinct frustration. Her breath is hot and heavy and the look on her face is one of determination. “My cabin—if you want—uh—” a bit awkward, her expression shifts to uncertainty. “If you want? I don’t know if you—what the </span>
  <em>
    <span>rules</span>
  </em>
  <span> of vicar-hood are. Are you allowed to fuck? I really should’ve asked—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Max is good at keeping his cool in most situations, excluding really irritating ones like obvious tossball fouls and dead languages and the hot water going out in the shower, but manifesting a coherent thought right now is a tall order.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am not celibate,” he manages. Honey Lou looks reassured at that, so he continues. “Your cabin?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck yeah. You got no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this.” It’s always great to hear something like that. It’s been a while since Max has been intimate with anyone. The ego-stroking is basically a requirement at his age. “C’mon, Vicar. We got lost time to make up for.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hot. Weird. Extremely weird. “Max,” he corrects, gently.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sorry, we got lost time to make up for, Vicar Maximillian DeSoto.” Honey Lou rolls her eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just Max is fine.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you want to get laid or not, Max?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There</span>
  <span> we go. And to answer your question, of course I fucking do.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Honey Lou’s quarters are much roomier than the regular crewmate quarters, with a full bed and a desk and a few boxes of old, unused condoms in the drawers. Honey Lou sits on the edge of the bed and makes a comment about this as Max digs around looking for a non-expired box.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Guess Alex Hawthorne wasn’t really getting any. I figured he and that Odom fella were going at it. You caught that vibe too, right? I mean, good for him, but if I sleep with a bootlicker they’ve gotta have something else going on. Like being super hot. Or a priest, I guess.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Being a vicar is a prerequisite?” asks Max, opening a box that expires in the acceptable range of later this year. “I’m hurt. I hope you know religion will have no influence on whatever we do tonight.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, I’m counting on it.” Honey Lou has this smile on her face. A bit dangerous. Very tempting. “You’re not even acknowledging the first thing. I’m not using you for some kind of unrealized kink. I’m using you because I get all wound up whenever I see you pick up that shotgun.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Concerning, but I suppose I feel much the same way about you and your hammer.” When she holds it up he can see the muscles in her arms flexing. She’s built nicely. Tall, taut like a bowstring, with broad shoulders and impressively strong arms. It would be difficult not to notice. He holds up a singular wrapped condom. “How do you want to do this?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Any way you want. I just want to do this. It’s been too long for me, and I didn’t think this would ever happen,” she says. There’s quiet for a moment before, evidently, she changes her mind, because she adds: “Let me suck you off.” Max chokes on his own spit. “I wanna see what you look like undone.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I—” Max cuts himself off. It's been much too long for him, and he has to admit the idea is promising. “If that’s what you’d like,” he says. And suddenly, Honey Lou is stripping off her overalls, walking over to him, and pulling him into a fast and heady kiss before she presses her lips to the corner of his mouth and down his jawline, over the collar of his sleep shirt, at the base of his neck, before sinking to her knees. Her fingers loop around the waistband of his pants, pulling them down and getting a look at—almost admiring—his cock straining against the fabric of his undergarments.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Been dreaming about this,” she says. Her voice is hushed, and there’s a sense of astonishment about it. Like she’s surprised at herself. “Not even my favorite thing to do in bed, but I just thought about doing this for you. Seeing you watch me.” She presses her mouth against his clothed erection. Just a hint of her warmth through a layer of fabric. Max isn’t so affected by it, but then she looks up at him, eyes wide. The irises are so light, the pupils blown out as a confident smile appears on her face. “You’ll watch me, right? Maybe you haven’t been dreamin’ about it, but it crossed your mind, right?” Too many times. Max reaches a hand towards her, stroking her cheek. She leans into his palm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You should get on with it,” he says. It comes out gentler than it usually would. Honey Lou’s teasing doesn’t make him impatient. Mostly, it just keeps him entertained. “I’ll watch.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You better.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Honey Lou wastes no more time in pulling down his underwear, looking over his cock for just a moment before wrapping her hand around the shaft, pressing her tongue against the head. Max groans as she takes his cock into her mouth, looking up at him as she sucks. She keeps a good pace, stroking his shaft with one hand while she focuses on the tip. Her lips are darkened and slick with saliva even before she does anything else, and when Max places a hand on her head she takes that as a sign to move further. Her hand falls from his shaft as she sinks further onto him, cheeks hollowing. Max feels his own breath hitch and his hand tighten in her hair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Fuck,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> he exhales. She’s still looking at him. Her eyes are glossy and there’s this sense of smugness about her, like she knows exactly what she’s doing. It’s enthusiastic and sloppy and a line of spit falls from the corner of her mouth. Max wipes it away with his thumb. “You’re a mess,” he says. Slowly, a bit torturously, she pulls off him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You like it?” she asks. “I don’t know how to do this without making a mess of myself, to be honest. Makes it better though, don’t it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Immeasurably.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know. You’re lucid enough to say words like </span>
  <em>
    <span>immeasurably,</span>
  </em>
  <span> whatever that means. Maybe I gotta work harder.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Max rolls his eyes and holds back a little laugh. “You’re fantastic, Captain.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Honey Lou. Or Honey. Whatever you want, but don’t call me Captain while I’m getting you off,” she corrects, wrapping her hand around his cock again and moving in quick, short strokes. “Hopefully I’ll make you feel so good you don’t manage to call me anything, though.” With that, she takes him into her mouth again, this time with seemingly </span>
  <em>
    <span>more</span>
  </em>
  <span> energy than before. She takes him almost entirely within a few seconds and is met with a strangled sound from Max. She makes obscene noises when his cock nearly hits the back of her throat, and Max can’t bring himself to string together a real thought, comment, or much of anything because suddenly he can feel the vibrations of an exaggerated moan around his cock.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Fuck,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Honey Lou. I’m going to fucking come.” He finishes as he says it, and another moan escapes him upon feeling her swallow around him. There’s quiet as the air settles and his orgasm fades. He looks down at Honey Lou, who looks back up at him with satisfaction. “Laws, come here. Let me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she stands, he pulls her into another kiss. This one is rougher than the last few, with a bit of teeth clicking (ouch) before they find a cohesive rhythm again. His hands roam around her back, feeling the defined muscles of her shoulder blades before drawing further down. He squeezes her ass once, eliciting something he feels comfortable calling a ‘squeak’ from Honey Lou. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Max,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> she says, scandalized. “Laws, are you an ass man? I should've guessed. I don’t know who, but I owe </span>
  <em>
    <span>someone</span>
  </em>
  <span> five bits.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He really should be more annoyed by these little mood-ruining comments, but what mood are they even building? This isn’t some emotionless one night stand or aggressive tryst or drunken mistake (well, it might be that last one); it’s sex with Honey Lou, and he can’t help but find himself in good humor with her. He is curious who she made that bet with, though. He’ll have to ask after this is done, but beforehand: “Bed,” he says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Honey Lou is situated—lying on her back, legs hanging over the side of her bed, fully presented to him (were Max a younger man, this might get him raring to go all over again)—he kneels on the floor, between her spread legs. There is a thin sheen of wetness over her cunt and upper thighs. He slides the pad of his thumb over her skin, licking it to get a taste of her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Very excited, I see,” he says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Sure wish someone was doing something about it,” says Honey Lou. She waits a beat before opening her mouth again. “I mean you. You should do something about it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I figured,” he replies. He admires her for a moment, all the same. She’s beautiful, skin flushed and breath labored. He strokes her a few times, getting an idea for the sensitivity of her clit. She doesn’t seem particularly sensitive, but she does express her gratitude very loudly. Mostly in expletives.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fucking—</span>
  <em>
    <span>yes.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Yes. Yes. Do that. Keep doing that,” she says, voice low before she changes her mind—she does this often, it seems—and starts making requests. “Inside me. Come on. I want your fingers. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Please, Max.” It is a very appealing command, and he indulges her, pushing two fingers inside and letting her grind against his hand as he curves his fingers upward, pushing against the walls of her wet cunt. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Fucking</span>
  </em>
  <span> void. I’m gonna fucking—</span>
  <em>
    <span>come</span>
  </em>
  <span> if you keep doing that. Keep doing that. Laws, </span>
  <em>
    <span>please</span>
  </em>
  <span> keep doing that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know, I’m getting the feeling that I should keep doing this,” says Max, humming a little. Honey Lou looks like she’s going to respond to that comment before he increases the pace and her head dips back, moaning loudly. Distantly, Max thinks about the explanations they’re going to have to come up with at the breakfast table in the morning. Oh well. “Are you getting close?” he asks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The answer he gets is a raw, “Kiss me,” and he obliges. It’s an awkward position for what they’re doing, and the kiss itself is sloppy and rushed, but she’s so warm and she wraps her legs around him and he can feel her clenching around him as she comes. She moans against his lips, and says something he can’t quite hear. He would put his money on a swear word. Probably ‘fuck.’</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her orgasm seems intense. Her body tenses all at once and then relaxes. He can feel a flood of warmth on his hand, and pulls back to realize that she apparently comes in a very messy release of fluid. Honey Lou looks down at her own mess, before her head hits the mattress again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sorry, I should’ve warned you. That happens pretty often,” she says, letting out a heavy, pleased sigh. “Least I think it does. I don’t remember every time but I can recall a few. But you know me. Memory all scrambled.” She looks over at Max. “You’ll sleep here tonight?” she asks, both an invitation and a question. Max shouldn’t. It will only make things that much more incriminating in the morning, but he’s already expended all his post-orgasm energy on reciprocating her favor, so he finds himself falling back and pulling the blankets over them instead of doing the reasonable thing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s quiet for a moment. Neither of them are sleeping, but they aren’t saying anything either. Out of sheer curiosity, Max finds himself asking a question.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your memory,” he says, uncertain. “How much </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> you remember from Earth, if you’re alright with me asking?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“After all that? You can ask me whatever you like,” she says. “You’re pretty good, preacher man.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I definitely said something about not calling me that under pain of death, earlier.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah you did, but I sucked you off real good, so I think I get a pass.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just this once.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re an ass,” she snorts. “To answer your question, I remember most things, I think. It’s just the details that get lost. Certain places and people are missing in my memory, and time is… off. I’ll remember shit perfectly but there’ll be that one thing that doesn’t fit. Like if you were doing a puzzle and missing a piece. Pain in the ass, I tell you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It sounds like it.” Max doesn’t like the thought of it. Every fact that’s eluded him has been fuel for his fire, helping him journey towards the truth. “I’m sorry, Honey Lou.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s fine. Only ever bothers me with the important things,” she murmurs. “And I just try not to think of it, then. Easier that way.” Pause. “Now you tell me something.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh? Is this a tradeoff?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is now. Come on, Max. Tell me all about your tragic past.” That would take far too long. “I’ll think of a question. Fuck. Uh. You and that book. Why’d you never go looking for it on your own, after the first time?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A good question,” replies Max, suddenly very aware of himself and The Captain and the space around him. Like sobriety but worse. This awful, creeping feeling of being… watched? Or, not really. Seen. He doesn’t know how to explain it, but it fades away as quickly as it comes, and he’s left with an answer. “I don’t know,” he says. “It’s difficult to say. The marauders may have warded me off, but… I suppose I was just a bit hesitant because if I did find it, and it had my answer, I would have no way of leaving Edgewater.” And if it didn’t have his answers, he would lose his fucking mind, and he’d be </span>
  <em>
    <span>stuck</span>
  </em>
  <span> there. No way out. No revenge plan. Nothing. Just the thought of it is horrifying. “Your ship was very convenient for me. I don’t suppose that’s the answer you were looking for?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“‘S good enough,” says Honey Lou, tangling her legs around his. “Man, all that digging around for a condom and we didn’t even use it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It wasn’t totally worthless. You got to tell me about your theories on Alex Hawthorne’s sex life. I enjoyed your thoughts on that, though I think he and Odom Bedford were engaged in a long game wherein the intended goal was sex. Hawthorne was merely an optimist.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mm, you might be right. You’re real smart, Max. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Real</span>
  </em>
  <span> smart.” Her voice is quiet. She’s drifting off to sleep. “I’m glad we did this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Max says, “Me too,” and what scares him, for just a second, is that he means it.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>The next morning is exactly as awkward as expected.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Honey Lou walks into the kitchen first, followed by Max. They are immediately met with their crewmates. There are assorted comments about the ordeal. Parvati, always very polite, is the first to say anything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Uh. Captain, we’re all very happy for… whatever this is,” she starts. Max raises his eyebrows. “Do you think next time you could maybe… keep it down a bit? I mean, for the sake of your own privacy. It’s your ship, but. Um. Max was our vicar in Edgewater a long time, and it isn’t exactly pleasant hearing him. Uh. You know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nobody wants to hear Max </span>
  <em>
    <span>do that,</span>
  </em>
  <span> boss.” Felix looks exasperated. Of course, that is the usual look he gives when dealing with any Max-related issue. That and smug satisfaction and sometimes confusion. “Nobody! Ever! I was just trying to go take a leak and suddenly I’m privy to all the worst things ever.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, hey! I wanna clarify. Takes two to tango, y’all. Don’t go giving Max all the credit,” says Honey Lou. Max starts making his morning mock-coffee. It’s too early in the morning and he’s in too good a mood from last night to care beyond some mild embarrassment and sympathy for Parvati. “I put in hard work back there.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ew, ew, ew,” says Felix. “It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>the vicar,</span>
  </em>
  <span> boss! Are you hearing yourself? Are you all there? Blink twice if it’s aliens.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Honey Lou makes a point to not blink. “Always, Felix. Hearing myself is a symptom of talking.” She looks over to Nyoka and Ellie. “Any other complaints?” she asks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t mind,” Nyoka shrugs. “Had a glass of purpleberry and slept through it. Happy for you, Lou. And for the vicar, I guess. Unless that’s a bad thing for men of the cloth.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It falls well within the guidelines of acceptability for a man of my position,” says Max, stirring Rizzo’s Instant Energy Mix™ into his cup of hot water. That’s one of the reasons he chose to settle for </span>
  <em>
    <span>vicar</span>
  </em>
  <span> rather than an actual church leader. There are no specific rules against higher ups having intercourse, but they’re all consigned to their seminary schools, teaching others. The opportunities just sort of dry out from there. Oh, and he’s on a long-term journey searching for spiritual secrets, so being tenured to his seminary school wouldn’t be helpful. “I am going to eat my meal in my room today.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So, wait, you were </span>
  <em>
    <span>serious</span>
  </em>
  <span> about that? With </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span><em>?</em> Captain, I thought it was a joke. Like, something to bother him,” says Ellie. “Unless this is a long con of some kind? Are you pulling my leg?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Unfortunately no, Ellie. I was deadly serious about wanting to sleep with this future priest,” says Honey Lou. “Speaking of which, Nyoka—” she turns to face their Monarch guide. “I owe you five bits.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh shit, really?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This whole situation is markedly less annoying than Max expected it to be until Felix starts talking again. “I just don’t get it. Boss, no offense, you’re like… cool. And you make the most sense out of anyone we meet these days.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, I got that effect on people. Real art-if-i-cal,” she replies.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think you mean articulate, Captain,” says Max.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>See?</span>
  </em>
  <span> He doesn’t even know what he’s talking about! And he isn’t even having his weird anger issues about the conversation, which makes this even worse.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ellie adds: “When Max is happy, we’re unhappy. It’s a rule.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Everyone, I have an answer to all your pressing questions,” says Honey Lou, making a ‘calm down’ gesture with her hands. “It's my ship, and I do what I want. Anything to add, Max?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Max looks at her and raises an eyebrow, currently taking a long sip of his drink. He makes eye contact with Ellie and Felix, and thinks, what the hell, he’s already pushed the boundary of his cool, collected image. And he’s not that sure they were convinced with it to begin with.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eloquently, he says, “I fucked your captain, shitlips,” while looking over at Felix, and then proceeds to walk to his room.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>The next time they sleep with each other is a few days later. Max is reading one of his books—a banned text on various thought leaders in Philosophist circles and how they died and/or went missing—when The Captain appears, leaning against the doorframe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Been a couple days. You been thinking of me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Perhaps unwisely, he has. A lot. He’s thought of that night with her and every hint she’d given before then about wanting it to happen; and, oddly, he’s been thinking of what she said about her memory issues. About the specific details missing. About her on the Hope, lost for decades. Mostly, though, he’s been thinking about the sex. That has been on his mind quite a lot.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They do this in his room tonight. It’s different from the first time. Less spur of the moment. Her kiss is still as enthusiastic as before, but softer this time. She’s been waiting for this, but there hasn’t been any question about the fact that it’s going to happen. He wonders if that will change later, when things will be considerably more complicated between the two of them, his motives comparatively less pure. The thought almost makes him upset, which is fucking stupid, because Honey Lou is here for casual sex with him and his moral reasoning for meeting Reginald has little to nothing to do with that. (Probably.) As with most inane and troubling thoughts of his, he elects to ignore it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tonight, Honey Lou gets him undressed and pumps his shaft a few times before she strips off her overalls. She straddles his lap while he lies supine on the bed, her palms flat against his chest as she proceeds to grind against him, his cock between the folds of her labia. “Sorry, I’m just in the mood for something quick and easy,” she says, panting. “Do you wanna fuck me, Max?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So badly. He’s thought about it since that first time, but mostly, he’s thought about her. Honey Lou on top of him, beneath him, beside him, anything. Just her being there, a warm body that can be pressed against his. He forgot intimacy before that first incident. There is something so intoxicating about closeness with another person, and he felt the weight of its deprivation long before that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m up for whatever you like,” he says. “This is good right now. I like this.” It’s such a simple thing. He doesn’t even add an unnecessary three syllable word. Honey Lou is still for a moment. Her expression is unreadable. Her dark hair hangs down. Max focuses on the shadows it leaves on her face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If I wanted you to fuck me, you’d want that, yeah?” she asks. “You’d want me?” There’s tension in her hands. He can feel it against his chest. He reaches up to press his hand against her cheek. It’s different than last time, this is more an act of comfort than appraisal. She leans into it. “Do you want me, Max?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course,” he says. “You’re alright?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” says Honey Lou, hushed. “It’s just been a while since I’ve done anything with anyone else—trapped in a pod and all that—and I needed… I wanted… Laws, I dunno,” she sits up, her expression shifting into one of mild discomfort. “Sorry. Moment was intense, I guess.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t apologize. It is… it happens, right? To the best of us.” Max just tends to internalize this sort of thing rather than speak it out loud. Honey Lou is more open than that, generally speaking. She isn’t an emotional person, but she certainly hasn’t closed herself off like he has. “I would offer spiritual counsel, but I don’t know if that would be appropriate in this particular situation.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Honey Lou snorts. That’s better, Max thinks. It’s better when she’s smiling. More comfortable. More familiar.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come on. You’re still hard. Lemme fix that,” she says. “If you’re okay with it. I dunno if that fucked up the mood or what, but—“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If you want to.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I do.” Honey Lou has this quiet, kind voice she uses to get her point across in certain moments. She adjusts herself, reaching back to position Max’s cock between her folds and undulating against it. There’s moaning from the both of them, a lot of expletives, an eventual orgasm. Max’s cum dribbles onto his stomach. Honey Lou swipes at it with two fingers and presses them against her tongue. “Salty,” she says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Unfortunately, there isn’t much I can do about flavor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s fine, I like it. Just didn’t get much of a taste last time. Was kind of focused on swallowing.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sometimes you say absolutely filthy things with no prompting,” replies Max, smiling. Honey Lou lays down beside him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mhm. I’m fun like that.” She places her hand on his chest. Max’s gaze darts toward it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Honey Lou wears a silver band on her left ring finger. It’s not very intricate, but it’s drawn his notice before. It’s an old tradition, and not many people today keep it, but Honey Lou is from Earth. Not to mention her seventy year sleep.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Max bites the bullet and asks. “You were married?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, and that’s all I’ll say about it,” says Honey Lou. “It was a stupid thing. I was too young to make that call, but The Plan led me where it did.” Max so heavily disagrees with her ideas on the plan—finds it so oddly pessimistic and unnerving for someone so unbothered by the complications of life—but he just nods.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And it lasted long?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Til I got on the Hope.” Honey Lou looks troubled for a moment. Max feels the slight brush of her fingers curling into her palm. She stares down at her own hand. “I can’t remember his name. I got all these memories of a husband and no idea what he was called. Try to think of it and I feel like a rabbit trying to get out of a snare.” She stops. “Do y’all still remember rabbits?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve read about them,” Max replies. He can conjure an approximate image if he tries. He can’t imagine Honey Lou as something so fragile, but he gets the idea. The horrible fucking frustration of it all. The panic. The pain. He thinks of the boy he used to be, pushing against the resistance of his circumstances. Of his parents. A rabbit throwing itself out of the snare and into the wilderness because otherwise it is going to have to stay here, working day to void-damned day and convincing itself of worthless fucking platitudes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You think too much, Max.” Honey Lou holds him a bit tighter. “You ever been in love before?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Has he? Love is a big fucking deal, isn’t it? It wasn’t like it was waiting for him in the backwater town of his youth, nor did it find him in his seminary days, nor did it even cross his mind when he was consigned to Tartarus. No. Max has never, would never, could never find that anywhere. Honey Lou had Earth, had a whole lifetime before this. Max’s life before this was simply an attempt to fill this canyon in himself. To be happy, to understand happiness through the Plan. It still is.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, I don’t think so,” he says. Honey Lou hums.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’ll happen one day, if you want that. You got a good shine underneath all that damage.” Max doesn’t know whether or not to be offended. She says, “Toughest dirt becomes the best soil once you put a little work into it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I do enjoy your dirt farmer colloquialisms.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Man, you gotta start speaking English when we talk.” Honey Lou sighs. “I don’t think I was ever in love, either. I mean, I loved him. I know I did, but I was too young. Didn’t know enough about being </span>
  <em>
    <span>in it.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Didn’t know how much it could hurt, how much you gotta toil in horseshit to get to something good. It was always good with him—whoever he was—and I didn’t need that. Couldn’t learn shit from it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Misery is a necessary facet of the Plan.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We can agree on that, at least. It’s a fact of life. Plan guides it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Honey Lou falls asleep talking about her own ideas of the Plan. Max falls asleep listening.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>Honey Lou says she’s met men like him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You got a tether in you, Max. Thin as a razor.” The bartender places a beer in front of the both of them, and in the dim light of the Stellar Bay bar, his Captain tells her theory of why he is the way he is. “Holds your temper at the end of it. That ‘violent enthusiasm’ you say you got. Seen it a thousand times.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>To put it lightly, Max has had a shit day. He’s spent the majority of it shooting mantisaurs and raptidons in the fucking wasteland of the ruins—which felt good, for a moment—and anticipating how much better he’d feel when he got the opportunity to exert that same energy on Reginald. He’d been thinking of it all day. What he’d say, how he’d say it, what weapons he might use for the beating, if his goal was death or </span>
  <em>
    <span>near-</span>
  </em>
  <span>death (world of difference; dead men don’t talk, but near-dead ones spread rumors about how they’re still eating using tubes), and yet he didn’t get that satisfaction. Not at all. He got directions towards another stop on this goddamn impossible quest of his and a drink from Honey Lou. And it’s the right choice. That’s the </span>
  <em>
    <span>real</span>
  </em>
  <span> fucking problem. If he’d just gotten to beat the shit out of Reginald, maybe he would have felt bad—violent, nightmarish—afterward, but it’d be done. He’d have to get over it. This situation is a lot more complicated. This has consequences. Consequences for himself and for Honey Lou, consequences </span>
  <em>
    <span>between</span>
  </em>
  <span> them. Consequences for whatever modicum of trust she placed in him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t appreciate you lying to me,” says Honey Lou. She sounds serious. More serious than Max is used to, coming from her. “I understand being angry, but you made me think I was helping you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t say anything to that. He tries, though. “You did help me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Helped you nearly murder a grifter,” she says. “And I woulda done it. Happily I would’ve, if I thought it had a chance of actually fixing your problems, but it didn’t. It doesn’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Max feels the tell-tale tightening in his chest. That instinctive, </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck you, you don’t know that</span>
  </em>
  <span> which arises every time someone claims to know jackshit about him, and then he feels that burn out. Honey Lou doesn’t claim to know jackshit about </span>
  <span>anything.</span>
  <span> If she says she knows something, it’s because she does. And Max knows it, too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He led me in the wrong direction. I spent years in that desiccated pit of a town, in a dead end job, for a book written in a dead language.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And that’s ass, but it was the book, wasn’t it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That doesn’t matter, Captain. What matters is that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew</span>
  </em>
  <span> it would be a waste of my time and my efforts.” Honey Lou looks away when he calls her </span>
  <em>
    <span>Captain.</span>
  </em>
  <span> It’s only for a second. He doesn’t even mean to notice it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And he lied to you? Sent you on a chase for the wrong shit?” Honey Lou takes a long sip of her beer. “Sounds a </span>
  <em>
    <span>mite</span>
  </em>
  <span> familiar, don’t it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ah.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“See, Vicar, I think your problem is real easy to figure out, once you think about it; and trust me, I don’t do much thinking at all, but I managed.” Ouch. She called him </span>
  <em>
    <span>Vicar.</span>
  </em>
  <span> She meets his eyes. “You’re selfish.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Everyone is.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“True enough,” she relents, “but it baffles me, you know? You think the Plan—your truth—is so important. Important enough to lie to my face, even, but you’d throw it all away for fisticuffs with a convict? Can’t say I get it, so I’m making you explain it to me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not everyone can be as content as you are with misinformation, Captain.” Max doesn’t mean to sound bitter when he says it, but that’s all he can do, really. The idea of masking his emotions is far past him at this point.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nice way of describing it. Content.” Honey Lou hums, thoughtful. “I think your search is bullshit, and on some level you know that, too. You know the universe is paved a certain way and you're afraid that the path ahead is something you don’t want, that the one you left behind is gonna come to bite you in the ass. That’s why you gotta beat the shit outta things. You wanna sabotage. You want it to snap back so you can prove it’s real.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Max thinks about that rabbit in the snare. Thinks about two of them, meeting eyes as one is tugging against its trap and the other is running as far away from its own as possible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t need you to—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You do. You need someone to tell you this shit, so you can look back on it one day and see how goddamn right they were,” says Honey Lou. “But for now, we’re just two friends getting a drink. You had a hell of a day, and we got a thousand more of those ahead of us, so enjoy the beer and think on how you’re gonna apologize to me tomorrow.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Apologize to her. He supposes that might be in order. Honey Lou </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> take him aboard her crew. Kept him there even through the vocal protests of her companions. She got the book for him, she took him to find Reginald, she agreed to take him to find the hermitage. She slept with him. Told him the good, the bad, and the painful about her life. He owes her something, at least.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I could pay you back for the beer?” he offers. It’s a question, because he knows she’s going to say no. That derelict inside him says it’s because she’s got to extend this sense of superiority over him—</span>
  <em>
    <span>look, I’m so void-damned kind I won’t even let you bridge the slightest of gaps</span>
  </em>
  <span>—but the reasonable person he’s pretending to be knows that she feels fucking bad for him. And he’s not sure he can bring himself to care. Even the best of men haven’t been abstained from pity.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Save your bits. I’ve been making you and Parvati fight mantis-dinosaurs and rabid dogs and fucking marauders all day. Least I can do is buy a drink for the one who can enjoy it.” She signals for another beer from the bartender as she finishes her bottle off. “Sweet girl, that Parvati. Puts up with a lot of shit from both of us.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“On that we can agree,” says Max. He looks down at his beer, fingers wrapped around the neck of the bottle. He drinks. Has since he was a teenager. He developed a particularly nasty affinity for it when he was in prison; and proceeded to go somewhat clean in Edgewater. He wouldn’t be falling off the wagon or anything if he drank it. Hell, he had a drink last night, and he shared that drink with Honey Lou. It’s not like he didn’t know he was lying to her then or any point after. Not like he ever forgot. Not that he ever thought himself wrong for doing it. Now, though, sharing a drink with someone he lied to, being rewarded for not committing the battery he was planning on, feels almost wrong.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hopes he isn’t growing some kind of moral compass at this age. That’d be embarrassing. He drinks the fucking beer and thanks the Law that this lecture is over.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>They return to the Unreliable. Honey Lou leaves him be for a while. That’s probably for the best.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(What Max doesn’t do is look over at the clock several times over, waiting for her to appear in his bedroom doorway. What Max doesn’t do is consider walking up to her room and apologizing early. What Max doesn’t do is sit at the breakfast table the next morning and pass glances at her like a kicked puppy or a damned teenager.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The bed feels emptier with no one in it. That’s an obvious fact, and he feels dumber having thought it like it was new information.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(He does not try to imagine Honey Lou there, telling him intimate facts about her life at his request, asking him questions he doesn’t know the answer to in return.)</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, Vicar. Take a seat.” Nyoka is sitting at the table, drinking a glass of whiskey. She gestures to the seat across from her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Honey Lou has elected to take Parvati and Felix out to handle this radio signal debacle on Monarch. Max </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> elected to day drink, until he stepped into the kitchen to find he’d been beaten to the punch. He probably should have guessed this would be a possibility, but he hasn’t been thinking much, lately. It isn’t the </span>
  <em>
    <span>worst</span>
  </em>
  <span> thing in the world. Nyoka is often drunk, but capable. And clearly motivated enough to push through her various hangovers and embarrassing black-outs. She’s easily one of the least irritating variables on the Unreliable, aside from Honey Lou and ADA. SAM is on thin ice. Parvati is kind, but far too concerned about his age and the cracking of his knees every time he stands up. Felix and Ellie were designed by the Architect to annoy him at every turn.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nyoka is tolerable.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You want to talk about something?” he asks, taking a seat. Nyoka shrugs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not particularly. Just curious about the situation with you and Lou,” she says. “You guys were going at it like two rapts in a sulfur pit.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not sure how I feel about this imagery.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Like two mantiqueens over a drone carcass?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hm. I still hate this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Like rabid sprats locked in a waste bin with an exterminator mechanical outside?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you making these up to fuck with me?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, watch your language, preacher. To answer your question, though, yeah. Thought you might appreciate a laugh. Get that tossball stick out your ass.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is there any particular reason it needs to be a tossball stick?” Against his wishes, he's smiling. Just a bit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You used to play fifth-back on Tartarus, right?” At his look of surprise, she grins. “I got a memory like a steel trap once you get past the booze.” Max hates that his brain generates ten different retorts for that, most of which are insulting. Nyoka says, “So, you and Honey Lou.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t consider it an </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> situation,” says Max. “She was passing the time. I lied to her. Now she is keeping her distance. It’s as simple as that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is it?” Nyoka asks. “I gotta say, you seem pretty lost these days. And not in your usual way, either, where you’re wandering around the ship and hogging the bathroom for thirty minutes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You rushing me only makes me stay in there longer.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll kill you one day. Anyway. My point is I’m sure you don’t think it was serious. I don’t think she does, either.” Shouldn’t sting to hear that. “But I’ve been around a long time. Seen even the most unlikely arrangements blossom into... <em>something.</em> Usually hard to explain. Even if you aren’t romantic, you and Lou have something nobody else wants to touch. She’s the only one who ever debates you about your plan ‘cept Felix.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Debating is a strong term when it comes to Mr. Millstone.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You think he’s a shithead.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes. To put it lightly.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And that’s the thing, I guess. Not my job to watch over the both of you. You’re grown adults. But… I care about the Captain, I guess. She did me a good turn. She’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>doing</span>
  </em>
  <span> me a good turn. And I think she cares about you.” Nyoka looks uncomfortable. Max feels uncomfortable. “More than she’d admit, anyway.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ms. Ramnarim-Wentworth, with all due respect, we do not have the most amicable relationship.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m no stranger to the Max-is-a-git-club, if that's what you mean. Felix started it. Ellie’s co-founder. I’m more of a passing in and out member.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right, so why are you giving me this advice? Or, is it even advice? I can’t quite tell the purpose of this conversation.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The purpose of the conversation is to be a goddamn pal, Max.” Nyoka groans. “Listen, I think you’re… uh… hm. How do I say this?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Insensitive?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Kind of a dick, yeah,” says Nyoka. “But you’ve got a lot of shit going on, and so does Honey Lou, and you guys are loud and everyone loves complaining about you, but I’ve seen how she looks at you. I’ve heard how she talks about you. She gives a damn about you. She just wants to know you give a damn about her in turn.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Max wants to tell her to fuck off. To think about her own problems. To leave him alone. He doesn’t. He just says, “We slept with each other twice. It's not like she's in fucking love with me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ain’t about that, Vicar. Some things are bigger than love. Sometimes it’s about comfort. Take it from someone who’s been around the block a few times.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m older than you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re also a priest.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Point taken.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next few minutes pass with silence.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>Max doesn’t stop thinking about that one phrase. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Some things are bigger than love.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He applies it to the Path. To the Architect. To the Truth.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>The night before their detour to Scylla, Honey Lou calls Max into her cabin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Vicar,” she says. She’s still calling him that. It shouldn’t feel wrong. It feels wrong. “Be honest with me.” For a moment, she looks unsure. It barely lasts a second, but Max so rarely sees her like that. “Please.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Like he wasn’t before. Like he promised to be after the fact, when he apologized to her. When he said that the hand of kindness which had been extended to him should have been reciprocated. When she told him to shut up and just say what he meant. When he promised to be more forthcoming in the future.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you gonna leave after this?” says Honey Lou. “When we find your hermit, and she translates your book, and you learn your truth. Will that be the end?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It will be everything Max has been working towards. It will be the culmination of years and years of searching. Of anger. Of pain. If it leads him somewhere else, he will </span>
  <span>have</span>
  <span> to follow it. This can’t all be for nothing. This can’t all </span>
  <em>
    <span>mean nothing.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Honey Lou is looking at him with that frown on her face—like there’s an answer she wants to hear—and he knows her to be real. He knows every moment on her ship, following her on this impossible journey through Halcyon, fucking around with her crewmates, to be real.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” says Max, truthfully. “I’ve searched for these answers for </span>
  <em>
    <span>so long,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Captain. You have to understand—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Honey Lou walks up to him. She’s just a few inches taller than he is. He looks up at her. “Just call me Honey Lou again,” she says. “If this is gonna be our last time together, let’s make it good, yeah?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Max should say something. Max should do something. Max should—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright,” he says, and kisses her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There are a lot of things that happen that night. Once they’re undressed, Honey Lou gets him on her bed and asks what he wants to do. This results in his head between her thighs, his hands on her ass as he gets his mouth on her. She moans and her thighs tremble as he licks her. His tongue starts off flat and broad before narrowing as he gets to her clit and leans upward, sucking hard. She comes hard and very messily onto his chin, before lifting her hips and looking down at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck,” she says. “Hate this. Hate that you’re such a damn fool.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not a very nice thing to say to the guy you’re fucking.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know. I’m not trying to be nice. I don’t know what I’m trying to do,” she blinks. “I want you to fuck me. I’m gonna grab a condom, if you want that, too. If you want me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There is always this undercurrent of insecurity with Honey Lou that baffles Max. He has met plenty of people with unfounded self-consciousness, but Honey Lou is so genuinely confident even in places she has absolutely no right to be. Why is it </span>
  <em>
    <span>being wanted</span>
  </em>
  <span> that vexes her?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He would ask, but he isn’t sure he’s allowed to. Maybe he was before, but things are different.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When they fuck it’s… fucking great, to be honest. Max has no better way to think of it. She chooses to face away as she rides his cock. It’s a shame not to see her face, but—the tension in her body, the flexing of the muscles in her back and thighs as she moves, the sight and feeling of his cock buried inside her—it’s all overwhelming. It’s enough to avoid thinking of anything until he comes, and then he does, and it all sort of hits him. He ties off and throws away the condom. He looks over at her door, back at Honey Lou.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Honey Lou,” he says, talking before thinking. What the hell? He never does that. “I know that you—I feel like things are—I don't know how to say—<em>fuck,</em> this is stupid. C</span>
  <span>ould I sleep next to you, tonight?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Honey Lou looks… surprised.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I thought you’d be against the idea,” she concedes. “If you want to, then yeah. I want that. Want you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wants him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What does that even mean?” he asks once they’re in bed, her arms around him and his face close to the crook of her neck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That I want you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes. I don’t…” Max makes a garbled noise of frustration. “I don’t see why you want me here. All I’ve done is lie to you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You make me happy,” says Honey Lou, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Everything is so fuckin’ weird here, ‘cept you. You’re wrong about the Plan, but I can talk to you about it. You’re twisted up inside, but so am I. You’re angry. I think I am, too, sometimes. I’m not sure at what, but it helps to have you around. To think I’ll figure it out when you do.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shit, Honey Lou.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not in love with you or nothin’,” she says, quickly. “It’s too soon for that. Too soon for me. I don’t—I know it’s been forever. I know it has, but to me it’s been one bad nap and now it’s all different. I was married one day and now I’m fucking a preacher. I don’t love you. Can’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(Some things are bigger than love. Sometimes it’s about comfort.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t love you, either.” Max wouldn’t know how it feels to be in love, but this can’t be it. There’s too much complication. Too much religion in the way. Too many obstacles. And the intensity of his emotions is definitely a product of his abject loneliness and violent enthusiasm and issues with his mother or some other bullshit like that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good. That’d be too much.” There’s silence. Honey Lou is threading her fingers through his hair. It feels nicer than it should. “I want you to stay, though. After you figure out your truth. Wanna make fun of you for how void-damned wrong you are.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“At least my religious philosophy doesn’t propose that free will is an illusion.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“‘Least my thing doesn’t keep me under the boot of the whole damn world.” Honey Lou inhales and exhales a few times. “I just like having you around. Is that so hard to get?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not at all, but Max can't say that, so instead he breathes in sync with Honey Lou as she falls asleep. He thinks about the Truth, how it will be in reach. It feels exciting. It feels terrifying. It feels like his work hasn't been for nothing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And, somehow, it feels just a bit emptier than he imagined.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>The incense is generating a cloud of smoke above them. Swirling grey pooling at the ceiling. Honey Lou and Max are lying on the floor. Free will is not an illusion, but the self is. Nothing matters. Everything Max has done has been for nothing. He feels fucking amazing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It makes sense,” says Honey Lou, gaze fixed towards the ceiling. “If there’s no Plan then I don’t gotta spell it with a capital ‘P’ in my head.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That is an </span>
  <em>
    <span>excellent</span>
  </em>
  <span> point.” Max feels lighter than he has in years. It’s nice. He always thought that if he could talk to his mother—say one last thing to her, anything at all—that it would be too hard to speak. That his love would meet his resentment would meet his regret would meet his anger. That he’d choke on every single thought he ever had about her and the injustice of his life. But he did see her, and she was still disappointed in him. There was nothing he could say to undo his abandonment of her or her abandonment of him. This must be what catharsis is. “Now it’s just </span>
  <em>
    <span>the plan…</span>
  </em>
  <span> lowercase. Did you hear the lowercase?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I heard the lowercase so clear. How’d you do that? You’re so smart.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Max shakes his head. The world is round around the edges. “I wasn’t smart enough to see the truth even though it was directly in front of me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Before now, every time you said it I thought of it in all capital letters. You were getting all torn up looking for THE TRUTH.” He can hear it in those capital letters. It’s fitting. That’s how it always felt in his head before now. “Max, I’m sorry we couldn’t find the truth that Sad Max wanted. Well, I guess you weren’t sad.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just on the inside.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Outside you were angry. Mad Max.” Honey Lou snorts. “That sounds like the title of something.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Max laughs at that. A full, relieved laugh. He can’t remember what it was that made him do so in the first place after it’s done. He catches his breath and says, “I was a fool.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We both were,” says Honey Lou. “You didn’t want to think that… oh, I don’t know. You didn’t want to mean nothing. Or, not you. The things you did. You didn’t want it all to be for none.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But that was wrong in the first place,” says Max. “You didn’t want the things you did to matter.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Easier that way. I don’t gotta worry.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I suppose you were more right than I was.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mhm, but I was still wrong.” Honey Lou is quiet for a second. Two seconds. Three. “If our selves are just a story, what’s that mean for me? My story is all fucked up. There are so many pages missing.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Max feels his eyebrows furrow. It’s interesting—he keeps </span>
  <em>
    <span>feeling</span>
  </em>
  <span> things rather than doing them. He can feel the muscles in his face moving to make whatever expression appears on his face. He doesn’t have to think about it. “I think you get to build a new story.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s good then. That other one was so confusing. Can I pick the characters in this one?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know.” Simple phrase. Endlessly comforting where it was torturously painful before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I pick Max DeSoto.” Honey Lou sounds resolute. “I think it’ll be nice to have you in my story. You can help me fill in the blanks. And write all the big words.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not a literal story. At least, I don’t think it is.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe not, but it’s nice to think of it as one. Otherwise it gets too big.” Honey Lou’s hand is warm and a little sweaty. Her fingers are twined with Max’s. How long has that been happening? He squeezes her hand. “We’re touching but we’re not really touching, right? This is just our ‘selves’ but our real selves… our… souls? Those can’t touch.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re close enough,” tries Max. “I can’t imagine getting any closer. I don’t know that that would entail.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think if you got too close to me you’d like me less. I don’t know much about my soul, but it ain’t pretty like yours. I don’t hide like you can.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Your soul is very pretty. Your soul is pretty to me. Your soul is twisted because its twin is lost to time, because it doesn’t know who to be. Mine was empty for a long time so I filled it with garbage to make it feel full. Now it’s clean. And full. And your soul is, too. I won’t say it, never, not without incense and my mother and myself talking me through it, but I want to fill that space for you. I could fill that space for you, if you wanted. If you could bear with me.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>My soul is reaching towards yours. It doesn’t know how to bridge the gap. I don’t know that it can.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Max,” says Honey Lou, whispering for some reason. “You said all that out loud.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I liked it. Those were real pretty things you said. Pretty like my soul. And yours. And us.” Honey Lou is rolling over to lie on top of him. Her weight pressed against him should make him feel heavier, but it doesn’t. He feels solid but airy. Does that make sense? He feels like things don’t have to make sense. “If we kiss, our atoms don’t touch.” She kisses him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, they don’t,” he replies once she pulls away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There’s always gonna be space between us, because our selves aren’t real. Our bodies are just carrying around our… our… we keep saying souls, but I don’t know. That’s so much.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Our consciousness?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My me,” says Honey Lou. “I’m just carrying me around, holding it out to you, right? And you can’t touch it, but we keep trying.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right,” says Max.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Scary,” says Honey Lou. “I’m happy, though. Living was so hard when I had a self. When I worried about the other selves I walked past. Now I just think about the space between myself and me, I guess.” She kisses him again. Max sits up when she pulls away. He feels a bit dizzy, but in a good way. Can someone be dizzy in a good way? She comes up with him, straddling his lap. “I like your story, though. The guy you built up. He’s a good man, even if it took him a while to sort himself out.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I like your story, too.” Max thinks he might be embarrassed about this if he wasn’t inconsolably high. Sober Max needs to learn to have fun. Sober Honey Lou might teach him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Another kiss. There will always be space between them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You think the hermit cares what happens in this room? Or is it just her place to hang out and make things go all spinny?” Honey Lou is shifting in his lap, rocking against him. “Because it’s hitting me a little too hard. Kind of wanna see where it takes me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, really?” asks Max. The ghost of friction is having quite the effect on him. Maybe all problems should be solved with hallucinogenic drug trips. He might have to take some of this incense home.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(The rest goes like this:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Honey Lou and Max naked from the waist down. Honey Lou on top of him, working him inside of her, rocking her hips against him. Her getting close to him, kissing his neck, murmuring into his skin. The visuals are blurry at the edges, but the feeling is sharp and euphoric. Warmth envelops them. Comfort.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They come in sync with each other. Her thighs tense around him as he spills inside of her. “There,” she says. “Right then. Did you feel it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Max nods.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“For just a second. I felt it. Your soul brushed against mine. Just a lil bit.”)</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>“Holy shit,” says Max, waking up post drug trip in the hermit’s back room. “Honey Lou. Honey Lou. I didn’t wear a condom. Holy shit.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Relax,” mumbles Honey Lou. “I don’t know if you got any prison critters, but I’m assuming you don’t. And I don’t have any dirt farm critters.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think there are more concerns about unprotected sex than ‘critters.’”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“‘m sterile. Go back to sleep.” Oh. Max blinks. It </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> true. He doesn’t have any prison critters, and he’s willing to take Honey Lou’s word for it that she doesn’t have any dirt farm critters. Her being sterile is news, but not surprising. Huh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He is somewhat certain that even with his new world view, he would be freaking out about this were it not for the residual smoke filling the room.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re in someone else’s house, Honey. I think we should probably go to sleep back on the ship.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“When you say my name like that it sounds like a nickname.” Honey Lou murmurs. “I like that. It’s nice. Comfy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sometimes it’s about comfort.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>nearly 10000 words of old man porn. i have hatred in my heart.</p>
<p>but also the outer worlds made me INSANE. writing this fic was a lot of fun actually and i do have a lot of love in my heart for max and for my captain, honey lou. this really didn't need to be quite as explicit as it was but i wrote all that damn porn might as well squeeze it into my long self indulgent fic about love and comfort and the desire to be close to another.</p>
<p>next up on my hit list... mr felix millstone.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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